There has recently been a concern in the medical fields about cross-contamination between patients. Particularly, persons who work with patients suffering from an affliction have tried to protect other patients and themselves from being exposed to the affliction. One specific area with a high potential for cross-contamination is orthodontics.
While working on a patient, an orthodontist might employ several devices. Accordingly, the orthodontist may reach from a patient's mouth, select a device and then continue working on the patient. If, while selecting the device, the orthodonist touches other devices or the packaging of the devices, they may be contaminated. Subsequently, when the orthodonist works on another patient, reaches for the same device or an adjacent device and then returns to work, the new patient may be exposed to the contamination.
For example, orthodontic O-rings are often packaged together in selected quantities to minimize the packaging costs. When an orthodontist reaches into a package of O-rings to select some for use, he risks touching and contaminating the remaining stock. Thereafter, any use of the remaining stock may result in cross-contamination between patients.
To prevent contamination, orthodontic devices may be individually packaged. Nevertheless, the orthodontist must still touch each individual package to expose the device. Additionally, it is more expensive for manufactures to individually package orthodontic devices. Alternatively, each device can be sterilized, but sterilization is time consuming and expensive.
The invented anti-contamination orthodontic device dispenser allows manufacturers to package "patient-specific" selected quantities of devices, organized into cohesive dispense-groups each containing a predetermined quantity of devices--such quantity being that typically expected to be, at the most, required for a single treatment session for each individual patient. The dispenser also allows an orthodontist to select such a dispense-group of devices without touching either the dispenser or the remaining clean stock of devices. Accordingly, the invention protects devices from contamination without requiring individual packaging or sterilization.